Love of the Land

For those who are home, and for those who are on the way. For those who support the historic and just return of the land of Israel to its people, forever loyal to their inheritance, and its restoration.

Friday, December 9, 2016

...This latest evidence of Hamas’ efforts to reconstruct its terror infrastructure in civilian neighbourhoods has once again gone unreported by the BBC and audiences continue to be deprived of the full range of background information necessary for proper understanding of past or future Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip. On the other hand, BBC News did find the time and the column space this week to ensure that its audiences were made aware of some short-lived “guerrilla artwork” in Tel Aviv.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
09 December '16..

Over the past two and a half years the BBC has produced numerous reports from or about the Gaza Strip district of Shuja’iya, many of which have focused on the topic of structural damage resulting from the summer 2014 conflict between Israel and Hamas while playing down the issue of the terror infrastructure in that neighbourhood. For example:

BBC’s Reynolds in Shuja’iya: still no reporting on what really happened

“This is the Shuja’iya neighbourhood and the destruction here is immense. Wherever you look buildings have been either hit or they’ve got bullet holes in them. Windows have been blown out and there is rubble all around me. Israel’s army says it went against this neighbourhood because it believed that Palestinian militants were digging tunnels from here to go across the border into Israel and that those militant groups led by Hamas were also carrying out rocket strikes from here.” [emphasis added]

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work.

...however, The Purse and the Sword offers vital insight into a powerful institution that has been disfiguring Israeli politics and society for the last three decades and is still at it today. If you want to understand one of the most egregious and deeply embedded threats to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, Friedmann’s book is a good place to start.

Evelyn Gordon..
Analysis from Israel..
08 December '16..

In 2015, following lengthy negotiations, President Barack Obama concluded an executive agreement marking the accomplishment of a cherished policy goal: the nuclear deal with Iran known as the JCPOA. Also in 2015, after similarly lengthy negotiations, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu concluded an agreement realizing a long-cherished policy goal of his own: a deal enabling development of Israel’s largest natural-gas field by a private American company and its Israeli partner. Both agreements included a commitment by the respective governments to refrain from adverse legislative action over the next ten to fifteen years: in Obama’s case, action to reinstate nuclear sanctions against Iran; in Netanyahu’s case, action to alter the regulatory regime for natural gas to the disadvantage of the private energy companies.

As it happens, neither country’s executive branch has the authority to bind the legislature without the latter’s consent. But this didn’t trouble either the Iranians or the energy companies; they took it for granted that both executives would use all of the considerable power at their disposal to prevent such legislation, and that sufficed.

But what about the role of the third branch of democratic government, namely, the judiciary? That is where the two stories diverge. The Iran deal was never challenged in an American court. But in Israel, two left-wing opposition parties (Zionist Union and Meretz) and two nongovernmental organizations, alarmed by the encroaching specter of capitalist development, immediately petitioned the country’s supreme court (also known for some purposes as the High Court of Justice) over the gas deal—and won. The court struck down the agreement, saying the government either had to procure legislation enacting the prime minister’s commitment to regulatory stability or renegotiate the deal to exclude the commitment altogether.

A week later, speaking at a conference of the Israeli bar association, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked accused the court of wielding its power “irresponsibly” by intervening in “political and macroeconomic questions” that were better left to the elected branches. She also reiterated a longstanding pledge, in her role as head of the judicial-appointments committee, to seek the appointment of justices to the court who would respect the government’s “authority to act on political matters that don’t violate human rights.” For this effrontery, opposition members of the Knesset promptly accused her of undermining democracy and demanded her dismissal. MK Shelly Yachimovich of the Zionist Union, for instance, charged Shaked with “trying to destroy the legal system’s independence, intimidate judges, and threaten them,” adding that if this sort of behavior continued, “Netanyahu would no longer be able to boast that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.”

This was hardly the first time in recent years that domestic critics of Israel’s government have accused it of “anti-democratic” behavior that wasn’t actually anti-democratic at all. But such accusations have served to obscure the real anti-democratic revolution that has occurred in Israel over the last few decades: the judiciary’s steady usurpation of policy-making powers that were once reserved—as they still are in other democracies—for Israel’s executive and legislative branches.

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work.

...Evil is growing stronger and good is retreating. Deterrence may put off the reckoning for a time, but unless something completely unforeseen happens, the day will come when our PM will have to give the order to save one nation by destroying another. I’m glad I’m not the one to do it.

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
09 December '16..

If I’ve learned anything in my relatively comfortable and placid life it is that despite my good luck, evil is real. Sometimes it grows and sometimes declines. Today it’s gathering strength.

Hezbollah came into being in 1985, as a response to the Lebanese Civil War, Western interventions, and the Israeli invasion and its aftermath. Its stated goals were the elimination of Western influence, the assertion of Islamic (Shiite) dominance over Lebanon, and the destruction of Israel, which its founders saw as a tool of the West and an ally of Lebanese Christians.

Its attitude toward Israel is shown by this snippet from an “open letter” published by its founders in a Lebanese newspaper:

The month-long Second Lebanon War in 2006 was fought by an IDF grown complacent from years of occupation duty and a leadership team (PM Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Chief of Staff Dan Halutz) who were only marginally competent. While Hezbollah suffered heavy losses and much Lebanese infrastructure was destroyed, Israel was unable to stop the heavy rocket fire on the northern part of the country, which continued until a UN-brokered cease-fire came into effect. 120 IDF soldiers and 43 Israeli civilians were killed, and as many as a half-million Israelis were displaced as a result of Hezbollah rocket attacks. Israel tried to destroy Hezbollah’s leadership both from the air and by commando operations, and failed to do so. UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which was negotiated by Livni to end the fighting, proved worthless in preventing Hezbollah from rearming and rebuilding military infrastructure. Wikipedia called the result a “stalemate,” and I agree.

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work.

Thursday, December 8, 2016

...The incident is the second time vandalism has occurred within three months at the archaeological site against antiquities directly connected with Israeli heritage...This is not the first time that biblical treasures have been vandalized.

Yisrael Medad..
My Right Word..
08 December '16..

Are you incensed when you read about Orthodox Jews suspected of painting graffiti on churches and mosques?

Are you angry when you learn that in some cases even arson is involved?

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work.

...There may be no solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in our generation; not all international conflicts have solutions. One thing has now become clear: a Palestinian state next to Israel is not the solution.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
07 December '16..

John Kerry and J Street are worried. They see their cherished dream of a Palestinian state slipping away.

Kerry's criticism of Israel at the Saban Forum Dec. 4 attracted a lot of attention. But the transcript of the U.S. secretary of state’s remarks reveals an important moment that the media overlooked. Just as he was about to denounce Israel's policies, Kerry suddenly turned to the audience and said:

"By the way, just let me ask a question. Raise your hands. I mean, I know some of you may not want to acknowledge, but how many of you believe in a two-state solution, believe two states is critical? Okay, it's the vast majority of people here. How many of you don't, are willing to say so? There's one hand up, one, two—maybe a few of you don't want to say."

Kerry is so worried that public support for Palestinian statehood is slipping away that he desperately sought affirmation from the obviously sympathetic audience.

Stephen M. Flatow, a New Jersey attorney, is vice president of the Religious Zionists of America and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered by Palestinian terrorists in 1995.

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work.

...Dear reader: you tell me who you would rather apologize to: George Khoury, Yara Karmalawy, Susan Abulhawa, Julia Carmel . . . or the families of dead and maimed victims of a terrorist who crawled through the cracks?

Sheri Oz..
Israel Diaries..
07 December '16..

Mondoweiss apparently loves to write hate-articles about Israeli border security. I love to read their hate-articles because it means that my country is taking care of me. The article below was written last summer but I am republishing it here now because yesterday there was a report in the news of a pro-BDS activist trying to get into Israel and being detained at the airport and not admitted.

* * * * *

I am very sorry, George Khoury, that you had to suffer the indignity of being rejected at Ben Gurion Airport and, if your seemingly verbatim script of what transpired between you and the security agent (who you take to be a Shin Bet agent and why wouldn’t you, it sounds so grand to be interviewed by none other than the Shin Bet — a lowly airport security agent isn’t good enough for you) is true, then I do apologize for her rudeness.

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work.

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

...It is not a secret that Thomson is indebted to the Arab states for his appointment to the position, yet one could have assumed there would be some public limit to his servitude. Instead of covering himself with flags, perhaps Thomson should dust off his copy of the UN Charter and read about the GA president’s role and the values the office is supposed to represent. Until he’s able to perform the role appropriately, he should vacate his chair in favor of someone who can.

In an unpredictable world, one thing remains certain: anti-Israel distortion and discrimination at the United Nations. During my time as Israel’s ambassador, I witnessed some glaring examples, but would struggle to recall an example to top the outrageous recent actions of the president of the UN General Assembly, Peter Thomson of Fiji.

During a formal meeting of the UN, he chose to drape himself in the Palestinian flag. This wildly inappropriate behavior itself took place during one of the numerous events in the UN’s annual hate fest: an event timed to mark the anniversary of the UN Partition Plan but given the biased and one-sided title of marking the Palestinian “Nakba.”

In all my years at the UN, I never observed this kind of identification with any country, observer or member, in any context; not human rights, not natural disasters and not even massacres like the one currently taking place against civilians in Syria.

In choosing to drape himself in the Palestinian flag during an official discussion, the president of the General Assembly reinforced the absurdity of an organization that acts like a drug addict. The UN is unable to resist its anti-Israel fix, constantly increasing its consumption even at the risk of overdosing. This week we have witnessed the further crossing of red lines that Israel must simply not accept. When Fiji sent its representative to fill a role as prominent and prestigious as that of GA president, it surely did not expect that he would disgrace himself or his country by acting like a marching PLO demonstrator, trampling upon the values on which the UN was founded.

...Moon goes on to make the case that World Vision's alleged failure to identify the lethal corruption (our term, not his) in their Gaza office stems from three sources: Willingness to overlook terrorist atrocities, institutional antagonism toward Israel, and hostility towards Christian Zionism...

More than just "humanitarianism", World Vision's engagement in this area includes what it calls "advocacy". Its partners include "Breaking theSilence", Btselem and other far-left Israel-basedopponents of government policy. Sabeel is not named. The word "terror" appears nowhere in this brochure [check here]

A wide-ranging article seeking to put the current allegations, now under scrutiny in an Israeli criminal court, into a broader context has just been published today. In "World Vision’s Decades-Long Hate Campaign Against Israel" that appears online and in the December 2016 issue of The Tower Magazine, Luke Moon, deputy director at the Philos Project ("the network hub for leaders and future leaders who are committed to promoting positive Christian engagement in the Middle East") provides some background we have not seen elsewhere.

He refers to the criminal charges we mentioned yesterday and to the charity's problematic reaction:

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work.

...The bigger error would be to treat Arab-Israeli peace like a real-estate deal. An avid deal maker would be inclined to see the conflict as a matter of offering just the right inducements to the parties. But that’s precisely the failed approach that has disappointed successive American presidents for half a century, since it doesn’t take the Palestinian ideology into account. Such bargaining leads nowhere with a people willing to risk burning down the land their future state would inherit.

Emergency services in Israel combated brush fires across the country for a week beginning Nov. 22, ranging from Haifa to the Galilee to Jerusalem. Hundreds of homes burned down and nearly 16 square miles of forest land were damaged before the fires were contained this week. Dozens of people suffered smoke inhalation, and some 70,000 had to be evacuated.

It was an almost perfect metaphor for the Palestinian national movement.

Of the 39 largest fires—there were 1,700 separate events in all—29 were ignited by Palestinian arsonists. “We have also identified an additional 10 sites where arson was attempted but didn’t succeed,” Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan told me in a phone interview Thursday. “In some cases we were able to catch the suspects by camera or drone. In others we found Molotov cocktails at the scene.”

He added: “All the big fires were in Israel or in Jewish towns or near Jewish towns. There was no Arab city where there was a big fire inside.”

Police have arrested 35 suspects on arson and incitement charges so far, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to “prosecute anyone committing these acts so that all can see that anyone who tries to burn down the State of Israel will face the fullest punishment.”

Having tried and failed to destroy Israel through violent rioting, all-out invasion, suicide bombings, campus boycotts, and random stabbing and vehicular attacks, Palestinians are now literally setting the Holy Land on fire. The message, evident to all but their friends in Washington and Brussels, is that they would sooner see the land go up in flames than coexist with a Jewish state.

...Stabbing Israel in the back at the UN won’t bring peace any closer either, but Kerry prefers to leave the State Department with a gesture that would damage Israel and hamstring his successor rather than simply go home.

For those who thought that the Obama administration would fade away quietly in its last weeks in office without a parting shot at Israel, Secretary of State John Kerry has a message: They’re not done yet. Yesterday, while speaking at the Saban Forum at the Brookings Institution in Washington, Kerry let loose with a harangue that put all the blame for the lack of Middle East peace on Israel. He gave the Palestinian Authority and its undemocratic leader, Mahmoud Abbas, a pass for their refusal to negotiate seriously. He concentrated his fire on Prime Minister Netanyahu and other members of his government for “ignoring all our warnings about settlements” and dooming the prospects for a two-state solution. More than that, Kerry specifically hinted that the door was still open for a U.S. initiative at the United Nations Security Council before Donald Trump is sworn into office, which would undermine Israel’s negotiating position and possibly brand it as an international outlaw.

Kerry’s rant indicated that, despite last week’s AP report that the president already determined it would be a mistake to attack Israel in this fashion during this lame-duck period, many administration officials are, as Haaretz reported, still desperately trying to persuade him to the contrary. Clearly, Kerry is one of those doing so. His Saban remarks, which came almost immediately after speech by Netanyahu at the same conference, is a sign that his campaign against Israel is far from over.

The secretary of state is right that a great many members of Netanyahu’s Likud Party and some of his Cabinet ministers are strong supporters of the settlement movement. It’s equally true that, while Netanyahu has repeatedly expressed his support for a two-state solution and demonstrated his willingness to talk with Abbas, most of his government and a clear majority of Israeli voters have given it up as a viable policy for the foreseeable future. That is not because most Israelis don’t want peace. They do, but, unlike Kerry and the rest of the Obama administration, they are not in denial about the Palestinians.

Kerry bizarrely referred to Abbas as “committed to non-violence” even though the Palestinian leader has continued to send mixed signals about how committed he is to peace. Abbas has made some diplomatic gestures, but he continues to laud terrorists as heroes and martyrs, pays these killers and their families pensions, and allows his official media to spread hate against Jews and Israelis. Sometimes he evens joins in himself, as when he helped foment the “stabbing intifada” by spreading canards about Israel plotting to harm the Temple Mount mosques. Most important, Abbas refused to negotiate seriously with Netanyahu even when the prime minister offered to give up most of the West Bank. Nor has he recognized the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn, a sign that he doesn’t really intend to end the century-old war against Zionism that has become an inextricable part of Palestinian national identity.

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

...But there's another side and it's that a charity of World Vision's scale ["active in more than 90 countries with a total revenue including grants, product and foreign donations of $2.79 billion", according to Wikipedia] ought to have been doing somersaults in the air to avoid even the slightest taint of scandal, let alone find itself accused of allowing millions of dollars to be siphoned out of its operations and applied to funding terrorist warfare against innocents.

The man in charge of World Vision's Gaza operations inside an Israeli criminal court [Image Source]

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
06 December '16..

The trial of a top-level World Vision manager got underway in an Israeli criminal court in Beer Sheva a few days ago. Fresh revelations disclosed today in an Australian newspaper (and below) suggest the credibility of the global Christian charity is going to be as much on trial as the man himself.

Mohammad El Halabi, who held a leadership role in World Vision's Gaza office, is charged with

funnelling tens of millions of dollars to Hamas... [He's] alleged to have led a double life as a senior figure in the Islamist organisation and used his position “to divert the humanitarian organisation’s funds and resources from the needy to benefit of Hamas’s terrorist and military activities”. According to the allegations from Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security agency, the money given by British donors was used to build a military base, dig military tunnels and pay salaries in Hamas’s military wing. Other donations were allegedly transferred to buy weapons for Hamas in the Sinai during the period that Mohamed Morsi was president of Egypt. The announcement of Halabi’s arrest followed a raid on World Vision’s office [in August 2016]... [H]e was indicted on a number of charges, including funding terrorism. ["Israel accuses World Vision's Gaza director of diverting cash to Hamas", The Guardian, August 4, 2016]

It amounts to an appalling set of suspicions: Christian charity in service of the murder and maiming of Jews?

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work.

...This makes you wonder, what does Marlowe think is an appropriate way to portray terrorists? And what portrayal is she referring to anyway? Is it when Trump condemned the “barbaric behavior” of the terrorists who killed a father in front of his family in a drive-by shooting, or stabbed to death a 13 year old girl, Hallel Yafa Ariel, as she slept in her bed? Does Marlowe have a problem with these cold-blooded murderers being called barbaric?

Zahava Raymond..
Honest Reporting..
05 December '16..

An article in the Irish Times about Donald Trump, Jews, and Israel is riddled with lies, which all make sense when you see who the writer is. Lara Marlowe has a history of anti-Israel articles, which HonestReporting has documented.

Trump has made some ambitious statements about making a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, but according to Marlowe, the reason why this would be unlikely to happen is because of Trump’s apparently “ugly portrayal of Palestinian ‘terrorists.’”

This makes you wonder, what does Marlowe think is an appropriate way to portray terrorists? And what portrayal is she referring to anyway? Is it when Trump condemned the “barbaric behavior” of the terrorists who killed a father in front of his family in a drive-by shooting, or stabbed to death a 13 year old girl, Hallel Yafa Ariel, as she slept in her bed? Does Marlowe have a problem with these cold-blooded murderers being called barbaric? Of course she may not even consider them to be terrorists in the first place, as it seems she can only use the word if it’s put in “scare quotes.”

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work.

...Why should Israel have ever trusted someone who cannot tell the truth about the basics of the peace process - and who lies about it to make Israel look bad?

Elder of Ziyon..
05 December '16..

John Kerry, speaking at the Saban Forum this past weekend, said:

When Oslo was signed in 1993, the vision was that with the signing of Oslo, Area C – everybody knows there’s Area A, B, C – Area A is Palestinian security and administrative control, Area B is a split between administrative and security control, and Area C, which is 60 percent of the West Bank, is just Israel security and administrative still. But the deal of Oslo in 1993 was over the next year and a half Area C would be transferred to the Palestinian control administratively. Well, it didn’t happen for a number of different reasons. We won’t go into that now.

Kerry had good reason not to go into it - because it is a complete fiction.

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work.

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About Me

I visited Hevron in November 2000 after the outbreak of the Rosh Hashanah War to see what could be done to assist in the face of the growing daily attacks on the community. After returning to work for the community in the summer of 2001, a bond and a love was forged that grows to this day. My wife Melody and I merited to be married at Ma'arat HaMachpela and now host visitors from throughout the world every Shabbat as well as during the week. Our goal, "Time to come Home!"